Mara woke to the taste of iron and a voice counting backward.
“Three. Two. One.”
The circle beneath her burned white.
She gasped and sat up.
A ring of robed figures stood beyond the light, their faces hidden by gold masks.
The chamber around them was taller than any church she had seen: black stone pillars, blue banners, a domed ceiling painted with stars.
At its center, directly across from her, a young man lay on the floor with one hand pressed to his ribs.
Elias.
Mara crossed the circle before anyone could stop her.
Her new boots struck cold stone.
She knelt beside him.
“Hey. Look at me.”
His eyes opened.
Silver violet, not brown.
The color was wrong.
His face was his, but sharper, almost too perfect, like someone had made a statue from the memory of him and given it breath.
Mara touched his shoulder.
He flinched.
She looked down at herself.
Her old T-shirt and sleep pants were gone.
In their place she wore a dark tunic fastened with silver clasps, fitted trousers, and boots that had never touched Earth.
A lock of pale hair fell across her shoulder.
Her hands were longer, her nails smooth as glass.
She searched the chamber for a mirror and found only the faces around them.
“Did we make it out?” Elias asked.
The question was too small for the room.
Mara tried to answer, but her throat closed.
The last thing she remembered was the ceiling breaking open and Elias’s hand in hers.
She remembered the heat.
The alarm.
Then nothing.
“I think we died,” she said.
Elias stared at the new body that carried his old memories.
“Then where are we?”
“Somewhere after.”
He reached for her hand.
Their fingers fit together as naturally as they always had, even though everything else felt remade.
That ordinary contact steadied her more than the beautiful, impossible chamber did.
Pain flashed through her chest.
She yanked her hand away.
Elias sucked in a breath at the same instant.
“You felt that?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Behind them, the masked figures shouted.
The light in the circle pulsed.
A chain of golden symbols rose from the floor and curled around the twins’ ankles.
“The invocation has produced two vessels,” said an old man in a black robe.
His mask was shaped like a sun with its rays cut short.
“Unexpected. But the prophecy spoke of a champion born from beyond the veil. We have our hero.”
“We’re not your heroes,” Mara said.
The old man’s mask tilted.
“You have only just awakened.”
“Awakened from what?” Mara asked.
“You dragged us here?”
“The rite reached beyond the veil and called for a champion. Your souls answered.”
“We were dead,” Elias said.
“Does this look like a normal answer?”
“You have been given new life.”
“By people who put chains around our ankles before saying hello.” Mara looked down at the fading gold marks.
“You should work on your welcome.”
“We were dead a moment ago,” Elias said.
“That’s enough of an introduction.”
The chamber erupted in whispers.
A broad shouldered knight stepped forward, blue cloak falling from one armored shoulder.
He held a silver collar in both hands.
“The oath must be sealed before their memories settle,” said the masked priest.
Elias got to his feet.
The knight approached Mara first.
“Don’t touch her,” Elias said.
“The collar is a safeguard,” the knight replied.
“It binds the summoned champion to the Crown until the realm is safe.”
“Then put it on yourself,” Mara said.
The knight reached for her anyway.
Something inside Elias broke loose.
He moved without thinking.
His arm swept between them.
The knight’s hand struck his forearm.
The impact sounded like a hammer hitting a bell.
The knight staggered backward, and the silver collar flew from his grip.
Elias stared at his arm.
No bruise.
No pain.
Mara could still feel the echo of the blow.
The old priest raised one hand.
The golden symbols tightened around their ankles.
Mara’s fear turned cold.
“Eli. Together.”
They had done it a thousand times in fights, in arguments, in cramped hallways where one of them had to move before the other could think.
They pressed their palms together.
The room vanished beneath a flash of violet-gold light.
The chains snapped.
Every candle in the chamber burst at once.
A shock wave raced out from the twins and blew the masked attendants off their feet.
The knight’s sword tore free of its scabbard and spun through the air, stopping inches from Elias’s hand.
He closed his fingers.
The weapon folded in half.
No one moved.
Mara looked at the shining, impossible walls.
“Where are we?”
“The kingdom of Aurel,” the old priest said, lifting himself from the floor.
“And whether you like it or not, you have been called to save it.”
Elias took Mara’s hand.
“We just got here,” he said.
“We’re already not doing what you tell us.”
The priest’s voice hardened.
“Then you are enemies of the Crown.”
Mara looked at the broken collar, the chained circle, the faces behind the masks.
“You decided that before we woke up.”
She and Elias ran.